In First Kings 19:4, Elijah prayed: “‘I have had enough, Lord,” he said. ‘Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died’” (NLT). Prior to that, he had won an amazing victory on Mount Carmel by calling down fire from heaven (see 1 Kings 18:16–39). And God showed up in a great display of His power. This was an amazing moment—a mountaintop experience.

Then Jezebel heard about it and vowed to kill him. When Elijah received her message, he decided to flee for his life. He didn’t take time to be still and be refilled. He was depleted, so he went on the run, away from God’s calling.

In First Kings 19, Elijah went into a cave. He was depressed and halfway suicidal, yet he was still a man of God. In that cave, he learned to wait. He learned that in the waiting, depth of relationship comes, and in that depth is where you will hear God’s voice.

The Lord asked Elijah what he was doing in the cave. He replied that people were trying to kill him. In First Kings 19:11, God told Elijah, “Go out and stand before me on the mountain” (NLT). As Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain, but God was not in the wind. After the wind came an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

Now, notice this. Time was passing by. It was a moment. The winds were passing by and whipping around. The earthquake came to shake everything. But God was not in all this.

Fire came after the earthquake, but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire, there came “the sound of a gentle whisper” (1 Kings 19:12 NLT). And God was in the whisper.

I wonder how much time passed from the wind to the whisper. Sometimes you have to wait for God. It might look like He’s in this or in that, but He’s not.

When someone whispers, what do you naturally do? You lean in. You draw closer. By not rushing the moment, you lean in closer to the heart of God.

God is asking you, “Will you be patient enough from the time of the wind to the moment I actually show up in the whisper?”

Don’t rush the moment in your personal time with the Lord.

In Jeremiah 29:13, God says, “If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me” (NLT). The word wholeheartedly has the connotation of being undivided, of putting your whole being into an action.

I love how Psalm 62:5 puts it: “Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him” (NLT).

Going deeper in our relationship with God requires intentional focus. Hebrews 12:1 tells us, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us” (NLT).

View Hebrews 12:1 through the lens of Hebrews 12:2: “We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus”—not on the cell phone, not on the news alert, not on the likes on social media during prayer. I love this verse in The Passion Translation: “We look away from the natural realm and we focus our attention and expectation onto Jesus.”

The enemy works so hard to distract us in the natural because going spiritually deep requires us to focus on Jesus. Keeping our eyes on Jesus requires a spiritual attention span.

If you want to go deeper into God’s presence, pray your way into it.

Don’t let spiritual ADD cause you to check out five minutes after prayer begins. When you pray for five minutes, you’re barely getting started. That’s just the warmup.

Psalm 100:4 says, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise” (NLT). Praise is the entry point. Praise will bring you into the presence of God, but prayer will bring you to the heart of God. We need an encounter with God that is activated by prayer. I want to be in His presence, but I want to live at His heart. Don’t rush the moment.